Quilt Shop: Quilter's Cottage; Fallbrook, CA

When we drove south looking for the produce stand the first time, I did a Google search for quilt shops, and this one came up. That was the day I visited Temecula Quilt Co., but I put this one on my must-see list. My desire to see it grew more intense when my friend Darlene recommended it. We needed more avocados, having consumed all the ones we bought on the first trip, and so it seemed a perfect day to make this pilgrimage. Here's the link to their website.

Here's how the shop looks when you approach. It's in a long low building with a Spanish tile roof. This kind of construction is one of my favorite things about California.

Walking through the front door, it looks like this.

Looking to the right...now, yer talkin'. A wall of fabric. That's what we came for, isn't it?

The shop appears to be small at first glance, but there were many rooms of fabric to peruse, and there was a whole lot of color. It turned out to be much larger than it looked.

Look at how cute that tuffet is. I'm not sure what I would do with a tuffet, but I think they are adorable.

The shop revealed itself to me slowly. I walked toward the back from where I stood at the front door. In this room were wools and flannels.

In fact, the whole room was devoted to wool fabrics. But wait...do you see what I see?

Up there in the upper right...Oh. My. Gosh. Now that's just plain cruel. How am I going to get out of here without this pattern?

Well, the truth is, I didn't. It's a pattern in five sections, and each one can stand alone. The one in the shop was made from flannels, but I'll use scraps from my stash.

It kind of reminds me of the project I have in the works at home, Tuxedo Tales. And as it turns out, Bonnie Sullivan designed both projects. You can visit her website right here. She has some cute woofie patterns too.

Just to the right of that, I found something I haven't seen before. These were pre-printed antique postcards for making mini quilts. There was a huge variety, and you can see more on the Olde American Antiques website right here.

Here's the back of the package showing the four blocks contained in this packet.

There are all kinds of these available. Here was one of cats.

And here are a few minis made up from these blocks.

Well, I fell in love with these, and I selected this one of tomatoes. It would be a cute mini to hang in my kitchen during tomato canning season...which kind of extends all summer long.

These are the four blocks contained in my packet, and I have some killer cute tomato fabric at home that will be perfect with these.

Behind me in this room were some patriotic prints.

Back out in the main part of the store, there was a wall of fabric postcards with a sign saying there was a class available. I like the Irish one, but they're all cute.

This is a Bernina shop, and so it's always fun to see what's new with Bernina. It made me miss Big Bertha back home.

Moving on, this room was devoted to baby and children's prints. I'm going to estimate that about 50% was flannel.

Look at these cute Crayola prints. I have that one second from the left. The one on the right was very tempting.

In the next room were bright spring fabrics. You can see a nice collection of Kaffe Fassett there on the right. I love his stuff, but I don't purchase a lot of it.

Turning directly around was a shelf full of pretty reds. Man, I loves me some red fabrics.

In the next room were some novelty prints, and here I saw something that was new to me. See those cats on the back wall?

Initially, I thought they were applique, but they turned out to be a panel of cats.

There was one with a white background too.

And those were seriously tempting too.

To the left were some nice blacks and whites, and some sewing-themed fabrics.

Heading back out into the hall, there was a nice supply of notions of all kinds.

At the end of the hall were food fabrics and wine-themed fabrics.

I selected a few fabrics that caught my eye, and then gulped hard as I paid for all this stuff. Fortunately, I was distracted by this mini quilt hanging behind the register. Isn't this pretty? I thought it was thread painting, but it was machine embroidery.

So what was the damage, you ask? Well, I loved this little mini. There are four seasons of these, but only the summer pattern had the camper.

For my regional print, I chose a fat quarter of this one.

This one was on their shelf of sale fabrics at 50% off. I just liked it. The circles are about the size of a half-dollar. I could see fussy cutting them to make cornerstones for the right quilt. I got a yard of that.

And then this one was just so pretty. I picked up two yards of it.

So there you go. This was a great shop, and I'm sure I'll visit again on future trips when we winter over in Hemet. They have a punch card system, and I've already filled mine with quite a few punches. We'll be back, and so I'll keep that handy when we travel. If you're visiting Fallbrook, don't miss it.